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A gorgeous way to remember your baby's (or grandbaby's!) very first Christmas.

Last year was my baby granddaughters first Christmas, she was six months old at the time and we all wanted it to be so special - not just for her, but for us sentimental adults who enjoy Christmas as much as the children!

I was browsing my Studio catalogue when I saw they sell some personalised baubles to commemorate 'Baby's 1st Christmas', the bauble I chose has a different picture to the one above and is a pearly pink colour. It shows a row of tiny Christmas trees going around the top of the bauble with the main picture being a more cartoon-like bear, he himself holding his very own little teddy bear. There are tiny motifs of holly garlands and traditional Christmas puddings, it's a beautiful bauble and takes pride of place on my Christmas tree this year as it did in 2007.

I was surprised when it arrived to find that I would have to use some stickers to personalise the bauble myself with my granddaughters name, and also the year of her first Christmas. These stickers are extremely fiddly to use and it took some patience and very steady hands to get the letters and numbers in place.

Once I'd done this though it looked great. The stickers are gold and in a fun Comic Sans style which looked artistic and fun when I'd finished, despite the fiddly nature of them I think the fact that I added the stickers myself lends the bauble a slightly home-made feel.

The bauble itself is plastic, although heavy enough to hang nicely on my Christmas tree. I have placed it towards the top because my cats like to poke around in the baubles at the bottom of the tree and I'd hate for this one to get broken, it looks lovely with the rest of my baubles and has such an attractive appearance that I'm sure it will get the same amount of attention as my visitors gave it last year.

When I bought this bauble last year it cost around £3, which I think was a bargain considering I bought a personalised one to commemorate the death of my dog one Christmas Day (a horrible, horrible Christmas that was) and this cost me almost £10!

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a lovely item to keep for years to come

My mum got our daughter a my 1st christmas bauble form park hamper with her name on it. it was very light and made out of plastic with a plastic cover which had the picture and writing printed on it. we had to print the name on the bauble with some transfers we got in the pack. this can be a bit tricky but you get to have another go if you get it wrong. its not very hard, just a bit fidley. i loved it because it was personalised and anything with my daughters name on it is extra special because she has quite an unusual name so it is really hard for me to find items that are personalised. we still put that bauble on the christams tree every year and it still looks new. my mum paid £3 in the sale for the bauble and it was well worth the money. this is something i will always keep and once she is old enough, i will pass it on to Alyssa.

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A wonderful oppotunity to personalise a bauble for your child.

Any one who has regularly read my reviews will know I'm a sentimental old fool, so you can just imagine what I'm like when Christmas is combined with babies! This year will be baby Jacks first Christmas and just like in 2006 and 2004, my other children's first Christmas' I wanted to mark the occasion with a special decoration for the Christmas tree. Back in 2004 I had purchased the Babies 1st Bauble from the Studio catalogue and was delighted in 2006 to find they were still running the same design as it would mean I could have matching baubles for both my babies, now we have baby 3 and I wanted to keep up the tradition so took a look at the Studio website to see if the same bauble was still available, my luck was in and the bauble was still available and on discount at £1.99 so I placed my order and waited for it's arrival.

The bauble is a traditional ball shaped ornament featuring an old fashioned teddy bear, traditional foliage pattern and a section where you can add your childs name and year along with pre-printed words "baby---------------1st Christmas-------------" the design is repeated on the bauble twice so no matter which way it hangs on your tree you'll be able to see the bear and the text. The bauble is made of plastic and the design is printed on a cellophane wrap which covers the bauble, it may not seem like the classiest of materials to make a bauble out of and may make you doubt the quality but when you remember that it is to mark a special occasion and has many years to last through then it starts to make sense, a glass bauble is easy to break but a plastic one is likely to bounce from even the highest height. If you're anything like me you'll want to put the bauble on your tree year after year, I certainly plan to use all my babies baubles on our tree until the very end.

Personalising the bauble is done with the aid of 3 sheets of small transfer letters, important letters and vowels are on the sheet in higher numbers whereas a less used letter like X is only provided once per sheet, the same applies to the numbers with the sheets having more 0 then other numbers. In the past I've had no problems applying the letters to the bauble and even using some of the small swirl embellishments on the transfer sheets to add a little extra detail to the baubles, all you are required to do is place the sheet over the bauble, rub your nail over the letter required and peel the sheet away, this leaves the letter on the bauble and you can move onto the next letter.

The sheets I received in this years bauble were what I call "oober sticky" and on my first try of applying a J found the whole sheet stuck to the bauble transferring all the letters, after a few minutes of scratching them off I picked up the next sheet and a pair of scissors, this time I cut the individual letters out and applied them one by one, this was a little more fiddly and time consuming but it meant no more mistakes with the lettering. It's a good job Jack has such a short name otherwise I could have found myself running out of letters for his name, K only appears once per sheet so with one having been wasted in the initial accident I only had 2 remaining, one for either side of the bauble.

There is ample space on the bauble to be able to fit longer names, although middle names and surnames are likely to a bit of a squeeze should you decide to include them. Christopher is one of the longer names being 11 letters long but still fits nicely in the space, I'm glad we didn't have the transfer problem with his name, we'd never of had enough R's to go round.The baubles are lovely and lightweight being made of plastic and can stand up to a fair bit of abuse, I'm not the most delicate of beings when it comes to putting up the tree, it's hard to balance on a ladder while putting baubles near the top and more then one bauble has met its doom at my hands, but the Baby's First Bauble can defeat even my clumsiness. It has an integrated plastic loop which you thread your ribbon or bauble hook through to hang it on the tree, this is fixed in place unlike those on glass baubles which have a habit of coming loose leaving you unable to hang your bauble, you wont have this problem with the Baby's First Bauble meaning you'll be able to hang it year in year out if you wish.

I absolutely love my children's 3 baubles, I'll never forget their first Christmas or the year it took place but it's lovely to be able to mark the occasion and be able to look back in the years to come and reminisce. The bauble is very traditional in its design so if you prefer more modern themes then it may not be the decoration for you, still it is a lovely reminder of a special time in your families lives and being able to personalise it makes it that little bit more special than any other Baby's 1st Bauble available.

The bauble is currently available for £3.99 at-http://homeshopping.24studio.co.uk/searchresult/1